Stand by Me: Song of a Farmer

January 30, 2021 Alok Bhalla That’s Life!! 0

NANAK AND KABIR - Copy

Image of painting by Arpana Caur

Alok Bhalla

Rich courtiers stand with them
Stand with them behind brick walls
Stand with them behind barbed wires
Stand with them behind police batons

Prophets and seers stand by me
Ravidas, Kabir and Farid stand by me
Nanak Shah Fakir stands by me
Namdev and Dhanna know me
and stand by me, stand by me
they honour me, they stand by me

the plough and the furrow
stand by me
the mud-baked hearth
and kindling wood
stand by me
the clod and the pebble
stand by me
the stalk of wheat, the grain of rice
stand by me
the shadows of trees
and the green of leaves
stand by me

Their words are stone
their tongues are brass
their laws are golden bars

my needs are as radical as roots
my songs are artless and unarmed
my creeds are rough and windblown
come stand by me
stand by me

my hands carry maps of sunlight
my eyes complete the flight of birds
come stand by me
stand by me

stand by me
till the rains fall
come stand by me
stand by me
come stand by me
till the rains fall

Image of painting by Arpana Caur

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Alok Bhalla is at present, a visiting professor of English at Jamia Millia Islamia. He is the author of Stories About the Partition of India (3 Vols.). He has also translated Dharamvir Bharati’s Andha Yug, Intizar Husain’s A Chronicle of the Peacocks (both from OUP) and Ram Kumar’s The Sea and Other Stories into English.

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